Thursday March 28, 2024
SNc Channels:

Search
About Salem-News.com

 

Aug-29-2012 13:19printcomments

The National Consensus on the Mutilation of Every Newborn Male

It forces us to face one of the most peculiar occurrences in Israeli life.

Anti-Circumcision

(TEL AVIV Ha'aretz) - The main element at play regarding circumcision is the majority rule. This rule can only be broken by regulation from above. Not from heaven, which is too far from our reach, but from the governing power - a leader with inspiration who isn't afraid of breaking consensus and slaughtering (pardon the disgusting expression) holy cows. It's an irony of fate that the Germans, of all people, are calling us to order in Jewish matters. It's an irony of fate that they are the ones telling us the religious precept, which even complete heretics among us keep without blinking an eye, is a barbaric, primitive act, not to say a violation of the law.

If Eli Yishai, the emissary of God, is demanding of the German government "in the name of the divine command," to cancel the diktat to ban circumcision - it's self evident. For who is more suitable than the great Shas commissar to be the latter day Mattathias-the-Hasmonean and dare to defy the wicked King Antiochus?

But I'm surprised at President Shimon Peres, perhaps the last humanist statesman. Why doesn't he take the opportunity to break this frozen mindset and challenge the halakhic primitivism Yishai so clearly represents? Why did Peres, of all people, have to go to his German colleague like the lobbyist of a dark religion interceding with an enlightened ruler?

What disaster would have befallen had the president turned to us, his flock, and asked us to reconsider the automatic sacrifice of every Jewish male on the circumcisers' altar? I too had to go through most of my life and two male sons before I acknowledged the sin of circumcision, which I committed light-headedly.

If we think rationally for one moment, why should the Germans - and the Swiss who followed their lead, or any other Western state - allow a Jewish rabbi to perform a surgical act forbidden to anyone else who isn't a doctor? What chutzpah on our part to ask for ourselves a privilege that is a blatant infraction of the law, which is intended to protect people from various charlatans. This whole affair, triggered by a court somewhere in the federal republic following a circumciser's severe failure, forces us to face one of the most peculiar occurrences in Israeli life. No other state in the world, perhaps, displays such extreme polarity between outrageous clericalism and defiant secularism. Yet the one thing uniting everyone here, almost with no cracks in the wall, is the national consensus for the mutilation (whose benefit to health is questionable) of every newborn male.

What does that say about us exactly? One can hardly suspect people who eat abominable non-kosher animals and abhor religion and rabbis of saluting automatically to this divine command. It's hard to believe their sons' sexual organ suddenly turns them into God-fearing believers. It's a mystery, whose answer lies with the psychology sages.

From this aspect there is no doubt whatsoever that the main element at play is the majority rule. This rule can only be broken by regulation from above. Not from heaven, which is too far from our reach, but from the governing power - a leader with inspiration who isn't afraid of breaking consensus and slaughtering (pardon the disgusting expression ) holy cows.

In the absence of a convention-breaking Torah authority, only an enlightened president, who is no longer courting any rabbi and any vote, could stimulate thought and debate on this issue. If he did so, it would leave a deeper imprint than any of his political statements on current affairs.

www.haaretz.com/opinion/the-national-consensus-on-the-mutilation-of-every-newborn-male.premium-1.461078




Comments Leave a comment on this story.
Name:

All comments and messages are approved by people and self promotional links or unacceptable comments are denied.



Rene October 21, 2012 12:34 am (Pacific time)

I don't know who you wrote this for but you hepled a brother out.


Ralph E. Stone August 31, 2012 8:21 am (Pacific time)

Editor, not to belabor the point but actually God was about to kill Moses because Moses was not circumcised. But the quick thinking of his wife Zipporah saved the day. (Exodus 4:18-31)

Editor: Ralph, for the record this was my introduction to the idea: 'Thou Shalt Not Circumcise'The 2nd Commandment Abolishes Circumcision*  Michel Hervé Navoiseau-Bertaux Salem-News.com  Thanks so much.


Ralph E. Stone August 30, 2012 7:42 am (Pacific time)

The Jews are following Mosaic Law. According to Genesis, God told Abraham to circumcise himself, his household, and his slaves as an everlasting covenant in their flesh. Those who were not circumcised were to be cut off from their people. (Genesis 17:10-14) The Mosaic Law commands that if a woman give birth to a male child, he shall be circumcised in the foreskin of his flesh on the eighth day. (Lev. 12:2-3)
Jesus was circumcised. (From the NIV Bible, Luke 2:15-21)

Editor: God told Moses not to circumcise his son, do you actually not know that or do you just edit that major point out of the conversation?  Circumcision is genital mutilation!  

[Return to Top]
©2024 Salem-News.com. All opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Salem-News.com.


Articles for August 28, 2012 | Articles for August 29, 2012 | Articles for August 30, 2012
Annual Hemp Festival & Event Calendar


googlec507860f6901db00.html
Special Section: Truth telling news about marijuana related issues and events.



Tribute to Palestine and to the incredible courage, determination and struggle of the Palestinian People. ~Dom Martin